| Pronouns | he/him |
| STARFLEET Chapter | https://www.starshipkidd.org/ |
"It's none of my business," the woman said, "but..."
The witch did not roll her eyes.
"...I heard you gave the baker's gal fangs, and claws."
"She asked."
"You've made her a monster!"
"Adding doesn't make you a monster. Removing does."
"Removing what?"
"Someone's right to be who they are."
Buckle your seat belts. Someone just tried to pull one hell of a scam on me.
It began with an email I received on March 2nd. The email was from RB (name withheld), an editor at Pan MacMillan in the UK. She began by referencing a specific and somewhat obscure story thread from my one year run on writing Birds of Prey for DC Comics.
She went on to sing my praises, talk about interest in the Jem memoir, and mentioned many other highly specific works and aspects of my career. She talked about how my work might align with Pan MacMillan’s graphic novel and non-fiction catalogues. The final kicker was when she ended the email with a friendly quip about the number of my cats, something I’d just written about on my MoggyBlog FB page.
I was fairly stunned, not by the praise, but the extreme detail and specificity of the approach. I’ve seen plenty of samples of scams sent to authors that are always a bit vague and might mention one book title at most. This went way beyond that.
Which is why I failed to do the absolute number one smart thing I would normally have done – I didn’t look closely at her email address. I saw that it said macmillan and left it at that. I did look her up on the Pan MacMillan website and saw that she was a real person.
We exchanged a couple of emails and she strongly wanted me to have a literary agent. I’ve never needed one in the past and have always operated with only my entertainment agent. She was quite insistent that I needed one and recommended an agent named CD (name withheld) as someone she had worked with closely and had the right sensibility for my background. She gave me a personal email address for him, to “ensure he prioritizes your message”.
I checked out this agent and saw, once again, that he existed and was with a reputable UK agency. I found that the agency had a couple of co-agent associations with agencies in the US, including one I knew, the Howard Morhaim Agency. He looked legit.
So I did the thing -- wrote him an introductory email, and we’ve been exchanging a daily email every day for the past week, including on weekends. He was all about my “legacy”. We discussed specific projects, and he relentlessly pushed me to get something called a Dynamic QR code to create a Digital Author’s Bridge. I had never heard of such a thing, was only familiar with regular old static QR codes. We went back and forth on it a lot until I finally understood what he was talking about. It sounded like a good idea, but when I researched them, I found they were rather pricey to obtain and maintain.
I wanted more info on what his agency contract would include, what his commissions were, how he handled ancillary rights, the usual business items I would naturally want to know. He kept on about the QR code. His relentless push on the QR code is when I began to suspect something was off about this whole situation.
I pushed back harder and he finally gave a minimal amount of info on commissions, and kept pushing about the QR code. He insisted that we had to put that in place BEFORE signing a contract, or as he called it, a Letter of Engagement.
By now, the many little red flags grew into a Big Red Flag. Had I paid more attention to the fake email address in the very first message, that would have been a Big Red Flag right there, but I missed it. Mucho stupid on my part.
The red flags piled up:
• RED FLAG: insistence on doing this QR code before signing a contract.
• RED FLAG: not providing standard agent information about a contract or even wanting to discuss it.
• RED FLAG: the fact that the layout, structure, and phrasing of his emails were extremely similar to the RB emails, right down to the constant use of 3-bullet points as selling points.
• RED FLAG: a total lack of feedback to a creative project I proposed and instead simply accepting it without comment. No agent worth his salt is going to accept a quarter-page pitch without having feedback, opinions, wanting to know more, etc.
• RED FLAG: the constant push-push-push to get this blasted QR code before anything else.
• RED FLAG: ending nearly every email with the promise of a “global roll-out”. Of what? I had yet to write any of the things we were discussing.
When I began looking over the exchanges from the beginning, it seemed unlikely to me that “RB” would have done such a deep, deep dive into my work and background to include the specifics she did, not to mention reading my MoggyBlog. I mean, sure, it’s flattering, and it massages my ego, but I’m realistic.
Which left the notion that all or much of this was created using an LLM. If so, it’s the most nuanced one I’ve seen. It would have had to scour the internet for references to my work, such as articles, reviews, interviews, my amazon author page, and so on, then compiled it into a convincing email without including hallucinations or false references. If so, it represents a huge advance in the ability to scam authors and is therefore a significant threat.
If not, if it done by a person(s), they sure put one hell of a lot of effort into it.
During this process, I consulted with Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. She gave me the official email for CD. I sent him an email in which I forwarded one of the last messages from “him” with a query. I received an automated reply that he was at London Book Fair and out of touch for email. The reply included the name of a colleague, so I sent the same email to her. She confirmed that the messages did not come from CD and appreciated that I brought it to their attention.
I’m trying to get a valid contact for RB, so I can warn her as well.
Meanwhile, fake CD’s next message went on about how his QR code set-up was so much better than other sites because it was free and permanent. RED FLAG. And it would integrate straight into my Amazon store to my author’s page. RED FLAG. And for the umpteenth time, he ended with a variation of “Once we have this simple link live, we can sign the formal agreement and get the global rollout moving immediately.” RED FLAG.
I played this out a bit longer, very carefully, because I couldn’t figure out what the ultimate scam was here. However, the mention of amazon store integration made me wonder whether I even had an amazon store.
I have a page that lists all my books. I don’t know whether that’s actually a store. I certainly don’t make any money off it, but I guess it’s meant to be my “store”.
Looking at my author’s bio on the amazon store, I suddenly realized that the reference to the number of cats was actually pulled from there, NOT from my MoggyBlog. By a bizarre coincidence, at the time I wrote that bio I mentioned a sixth cat possibly joining the horde. And very recently, I wrote almost exactly the same thing in the present. Different cats, different places, but so alike that it’s no wonder I assumed RB was speaking of my present situation, not the past.
I wrote that bio in 2018 shortly before the fire. After the fire and losing everything, being homeless and whatnot, I completely forgot this page and bio even existed. I haven’t looked at it since then.
I see where much of what was referenced came from there, including an off-hand comment about a ridge from RB that had puzzled me. In the bio I mentioned we lived on a volcanic ridge. That clinched that the material in RB’s emails was drawn from this seven-year-old bio on amazon, treating it as current.
The last email from the hoaxer is again about tying a QR code to my amazon store. All this effort is to gain control of my amazon store? To do what, create a horde of fake AI books with my name on them? To steal digital assets from me? Those are the best guesses I can make.
I sent an email today that will show the hoaxer I’m aware of the scam. We’ll see whether they bother to respond.
I’m posting this in detail to alert other authors and to lay out how the scam has proceeded. I would love to hear from anyone that has had a similar scam run on them. Take care out there.
Please spread this far and wide.
Yes, you may be killed by falling human made space junk, but the odds remain small(ish) that will occur. The (almost inevitable) #KesslerSyndrome may also prevent future #space flights if all those #satellites in Low Earth Orbit start colliding, creating countless debris.
However, we *ALL* have to worry about the ‘chemical problem’ being created by SpaceX et al in the upper atmosphere. I have been banging on about this for a while and the attached article summarises the science in an easy to understand way - I have pasted the bit about the ‘chemical problem’ below because we *ALL* need to understand what the billionaires are doing to the planet while we are watching.
—————
Quote:
Debris on the ground attracts immediate attention, but atmospheric scientists are tracking a slower process with potentially larger consequences. When satellites vaporize in the mesosphere, 50 to 80 kilometers above Earth, they release clouds of vaporized metals that condense into aerosol particles. Those particles descend into the stratosphere, where Earth’s protective ozone layer resides.
Aluminum is the element of greatest concern. Upon reentry, aluminum oxidizes into aluminum oxide nanoparticles. A single 250 kilogram satellite generates roughly 30 kilograms of these particles. Unlike chlorofluorocarbons, which directly destroy ozone, aluminum oxide acts as a catalyst. One particle can facilitate chemical reactions that destroy thousands of ozone molecules over decades without being consumed.
Researchers from the University of Southern California’s Department of Astronautical Engineering documented an eightfold increase in atmospheric aluminum oxides between 2016 and 2022, directly correlating with the proliferation of satellite constellations, a finding reported in detail by CNET. In 2022 alone, reentering satellites released an estimated 41.7 metric tons of aluminum, approximately 30 percent more than the natural input from micrometeoroids.
Projections based on current deployment schedules suggest annual aluminum oxide emissions could reach 360 metric tons, a 646 percent increase over natural background levels, according to research highlighted by Popular Mechanics. Because these particles take 20 to 30 years to descend into the ozone layer, the atmospheric chemistry of today’s satellite fleet will not manifest as measurable ozone loss until the 2040s. By then, the upper atmosphere could already be saturated with catalysts.
NASA high altitude sampling flights over Alaska in 2023 detected the signature of this process. At approximately 60,000 feet, instruments found that 10 percent of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles larger than 120 nanometers contained aluminum and other metals traceable to spacecraft reentries, according to data presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting that year. The atmosphere now bears a permanent chemical marker of human activity in space.
—————
#space #science #TheBillionairesAreKillingUsAll
https://indiandefencereview.com/starlink-satellites-falling-nonstop-to-earth-risk/
For decades, space safety rules assumed satellite reentries would stay rare. By early 2026, with over 70,000 megaconstellation spacecraft planned, that assumption has collapsed.
I could see he was curious, but I knew he had no interest in lengthy history lessons, so I said, “I can do it in 15 minutes. I can give you a 15-minute history lesson that will explain ICE and our current politics.”
“Can I use a timer?” he asked.
I said certainly.
I prepared the lesson, and my nephew started the timer.
For what I told him, click here: https://terikanefield.com/let-my-people-in/
My sixteen-year-old Chilean nephew was curious about what’s going on with ICE. In Chile, the word “conservative” is associated with capitalism, and the word “liberal” is associated with communism. He observed that Donald Trump says he’s a capitalist but doesn’t act like one. I told him things are different here and labels have different meanings because […]
"Oh," the emperor of the galaxy said, "what happened to that monkey world?"
"Our agents infiltrated them some eight thousand years ago."
"Have they taken over the world?"
"Not yet."
The emperor licked a paw and started washing his ears.
"I'll still count it as one of mine," he purred.
A secret town full of necromancers. A librarian with a quest to resurrect a dead magic. A goofy historian that hides dark ambitions.
A pet zombie who likes to bite stuff?
Check out my novel, Books and Bone. It's weirder than you think: https://veocorva.xyz/books/books-and-bone-by-Veo-Corva/
Micro SF/F by O. Westin
Punk on Bus Lives!📻🚍
Christy Marx Rambling Writer
bicipoiesis
Lillian
Kila
Devorppa
Teri Kanefield
V, The Dragon Witch 🌙